Obituaries are for the living. The dead, the sages tell us, are beyond such things and fall outside all media demographics.

This piece of journalistic folk wisdom was hammered home Tuesday as the Capital Region learned of the death of Pete Seeger from two of its most compelling broadcasters, Fred Dicker of WGDJ and Alan Chartock of WAMC.

I'll pause here to note that I'm on good terms with both men (or I was before publication of this column), and have appeared on their respective programs — which means either that I'm an easygoing fellow or that I lack all core convictions.

It's fair to say that they despise each other for reasons that go well beyond radio ratings. Those reasons are largely political, with Chartock coming at things from the left and Dicker from the right. Two things they have in common: fractious relationships with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and a deep interest in political folk music.

And so they turned to Seeger, who long before his death Monday night had been taken up as the banjo-wielding granddad of the American progressive movement, a friend to Occupy Wall Street and an avowed enemy of hydrofracking. His musical career had survived the House Un-American Activities Committee, the blacklist and even Bob Dylan's rejection of "finger-pointing" protest songs — Seeger's bread and butter — in favor of music that was more personal and much louder.

This was the burnished portrait offered on WAMC, where Seeger maintained a long friendship with Chartock, the public broadcaster's president and CEO.

Not surprisingly, Tuesday morning's remembrances on the station had the hushed and reverent feeling reserved for a death in the family — which is, of course, different from a straightforward account of a long and often controversial life.

Get ready for a lot more as the station kicks off its latest fund drive on Monday. And yes, selections of Seeger's music and voluminous taped interviews with Chartock will be available as pledge premiums. (This is not meant to make the station sound mercenary: Seeger always made it clear that his fame existed to be put to use.)

On the AM dial, Dicker had a slightly different take. Winding himself up, he began by blasting the "hagiography" that Seeger's death had unleashed. He wasted no time in taking the singer to task for his longtime embrace of Communism, especially Seeger's pathetically tardy repudiation of Joseph Stalin's reign of terror.

Dicker called Seeger "a fabulous performer" who was also "a Pied Piper of American Communism." He connected what he saw as Seeger's "contempt" for the middle and upper classes with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's desire to tax the wealthy.

As Tuesday's show continued, it became more baroque: Dicker's retired New York Post colleague Bob McManus called in to conjure up the image of Seeger and Stalin holding a reunion in the Ninth Circle of Hell — the holding pen for traitors, according to Dante.

Was this perhaps taking things a bit too far? Or was WAMC's remembrance not taking them far enough?

Perhaps it's closer to the truth to say that Seeger was neither a secular saint nor Satan's favorite folk singer. In a life that very nearly spanned the previous century, he made good choices and bad ones along with any number of his fellow idealists.

I'm not sure he saw many shades of gray in modern politics, but he was far more often on the right side of social justice than he was in league with radical hustlers of every stripe.

In his State of the Union address just a few hours after this on-air duel over Seeger's legacy, President Barack Obama said in reference to the continued rancor over the Affordable Care Act, "I know that the American people aren't interested in refighting old battles."

He was wrong both in the particular — Republicans are downright giddy at the prospect of assailing ACA in the November elections — and in general: We love refighting old battles, and the older the better.

Seeger, a memorable performer at Obama's inaugural concert, was an old campaigner in the nation's cultural and political life.

Closer to home and a generation younger, Chartock and Dicker are two more.